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to have an epileptic paroxysm. He waved a hand at Crosber.
    â€œIt grieves me to say that Ferdor Masalsky has been found guilty of treasonable conduct against the State,” the latter said in his high, squeaky voice. “It is therefore necessary that he should be deported immediately and”—a momentary pause—“his money confiscated.”
    Minna’s knees trembled. It was a plot—the vilest kind of plot—against the man who had given her every conceivable luxury; and it was this which caused her even more consternation of soul; the action had been taken because these two had meant to trap her. They—the wolf, Crosber, and the man without mercy, Kuhnreich—had set such a snare that it was impossible for her to do anything but fall into it.
    â€œYou will work for Ronstadt as you worked for Germany.…Crosber will now give you your instructions.”
    With these words she was dismissed.
    â€œYou do not appear to appreciate the fact, but his Excellency has been very generous. He could have ordered you severe punishment for associating with that Jew. Aren’t you ashamed, as a good citizeness of Ronstadt, to have had any dealings with such a traitor?”
    She did not reply—not because she could find no words to say, but because she was afraid that if she once opened her lips she would say too much.
    â€œAs it is, you are to be given a great opportunity to serve the State. Instead of scowling there, you should be proud.”
    The atmosphere of this room—the most private of all the many private rooms occupied in that building by the Chief of the Pé Secret Police—seemed stifling. She remembered some of the many terrible things that people whispered this man Crosber had done—some almost too ghastly to be given human credence. What a fool she had been to come back! She had been happy enough in America; she should have stayed there. America was a country where one could be free: Ronstadt was nothing but one huge and horrible prison.
    The voice of Crosber continued.
    â€œYes, proud,” he was saying. “We could have selected many women to undertake this task, but I induced his Excellency to choose you. I have always had a preference for von Jago’s former agents. The old fox certainly knew his work.”
    He leaned back in his padded chair and lit a thin cigarette. He looked at that moment like a decayed ogre, and Minna would have liked—if only she had dared!—to strike him across his yellow face with her clenched fist. If her former chief, Hermann von Jago, had known his job, so did her present taskmaster. He had reduced a once-great city to a state of terror; he had delivered its millions of inhabitants over to the bondage of fear, in which each man spied on his neighbour, and lived from hour to hour in voiceless dread.
    â€œBut you are anxious, no doubt, to hear exactly what task is to be allotted to you. Fräulein, war is coming. Yes, war is coming—and that means that our secret agents must get busy. Already the English newspapers are regaling their readers with sensational details.” He chuckled dryly as he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a long clipping. “Read that for yourself,” he ordered, passing it over.
    The woman took it with reluctant fingers.
    She read:
    SECRETS OF THE NEW WAR
how modern spies risk their lives
    Europe once again has become a battleground. Although actual hostilities have not yet broken out, the legions of spies are busily at work, endeavouring to wrest from each other the war secrets of other nations. Within the past nine months over a hundred men and women have been convicted of spying, and of these the greater number have suffered the extreme penalty and have been killed.
    Let us, for the enlightenment of those ostrich-like pacifists who are so vehemently declaring that another war of any sort is impossible, throw aside for a few minutes the curtain which hides the